Swatch: Woodland Shawl

Seeing as how I am trying to stay on top of my blog posts, here is a swatch of a soon to be WIP. I wanted to knit a shawl to wear at my sisters wedding and I decided on the Woodland Shawl. First, I think it looks good in sold color yarn - I'm using a cone of mercerized gray cotton I have since the dresses are black with beading on the bodice that is outlined in silver/gray. Second, the leaf pattern mimics the central shape on the beading, so I think the shawl will nicely complement my dress. Since the cone cotton is meant to be used for weaving, I had no idea what needle size to use. I ballparked size 6 and knit up a 24 st swatch. I think it looks ok, I'm going to swatch it in size 5 needles and see if I like that more. If not, i'll stick with the size 6.

The yarn is: Valley Cottons 3/2 Mercerized Perle Cotton, 1 pound, in color 8473, lot 81495, and I bought it at one of the Webs tent sales a while back (there may have even been a post on this somewhere).
So in case you ever wondered what needle size to use with size 3/2 cone cotton, size 6 is decent. Its probably about right, I'm just going to try size 5 and see what I get since with all the knit/purl switches in the pattern, my stiches are a bit loosy-goosy and I'd prefer better, tighter definition for this pattern.

Also, my mitts based off of the Pomatomus sock pattern finished drying / blocking today. Its nearly impossible to get nice pictures of mitts while you are wearing them!!

Further also, I've been slowly working on a painting I started in August. I've never been much of a painter, I didn't even take painting when I did my minor in visual arts - I stuck to the 3d stuff like sculpture. So, please, dont be too harsh on me. But I inherited a canvas, and some acrylic paint, so I decided to give it a go. Most of my stuff in in shades of purple and green so I stuck with that theme. My old room in Brookline, MA was this awesome shade of mossy green and I started with that color since I miss it. It's a WIP and I'm taking my time so I can let it "talk to me" and see where it goes. (:{